


sweetness

by serlingesque



Category: Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Changing Tenses, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Chronological, Other, POV First Person, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, its probably confusing, more of a modern-ish au but not really?, not a specific production
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23087371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serlingesque/pseuds/serlingesque
Summary: a collection of instances - only half-remembered, and not in any particular order - which took place before, before the before, and after it happened.
Relationships: Hamlet & Horatio, Hamlet/Horatio (Hamlet), Hamlet/Laertes, Hamlet/Ophelia (Hamlet), its up to you<<
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> this was an idea i had which i would honestly expand into a multi-chapter/long-term project if i had the time to because i am REALLY into these two right now and not much else, but for now,, a short little thing.

v.iii

Grieving is the strangest thing. 

v.iv

I usually caught the bus to you precisely when it arrived, between two and five minutes past midnight. This was convenient since bus schedules were far apart in the late hours. You would usually call me about eight to ten minutes prior, to the extent that I would sit at my desk reading, anticipating the ringing and your voice. You couldn’t sleep without those calls. You wouldn’t sleep, you refused to. You couldn’t have those nightmares again, or bear to see his face.

I’d stand up on the bus, unless I was tired, because I knew I would need to keep my energy up and my blood flowing, and coffee always made me sick to my stomach. I refused to fall asleep until you did. 

For the sixty-two minutes, I’d look at my figure in the window opposite me, against the dark backdrop and the bulbs of streetlights and passing cars, wondering how I’d get to you this time. Some nights I would have to threaten you. Some I simply stated I would stay until you could sleep, and would stay as you did. Some nights I would shrug, you’d comment on my exhaustion, and as much as I fumbled to deny it you would try just for that. (“Two of us is better than one, I guess,” you’d said against my shoulder.)

Most nights, though, I listened. 

I think that is what I miss most: the ability to listen. I can’t hear anyone talk anymore. You said you had lost something similar yourself, that the only thing audible anymore was your own voice and your own thoughts, the rest noise, the rest an inconvenience. 

v.v

The first time we’d gone to that diner was years back, when we went to different high schools and hung out on the days we had literature club. We had only begun to get to know each other, and I had not nearly begun to realize that I was latching onto you, and you were melting all over my conscience. 

In front of it there had been a short statue of a lanky server with a bowl cut next to the doors. I had pointed at it from across the street and said, “Hey, look, it’s you.” 

Insecure about your physique, you said, “For that, you owe me a cheesecake.” 

When we found ourselves a booth and a slice of cheesecake with a strawberry sauce trickled over it was placed in the middle of the table, I waited. You gazed at it as if in thought, but did not eat it. 

“Is something the matter?” 

“I don’t think I want it,” you said.

“Oh.” I was confused and a bit frustrated at the time. I look back at it and chuckle. I had squinted and furrowed my brows, trying to find out if something was wrong with it, or if I had said or done something wrong. 

“No reason,” you quickly said then. “I just don’t feel like cheesecake.”

“But, you asked me to buy you one.” 

“Yeah, I really appreciate that, by the way,” you replied. “You deserve to take some for yourself.” 

“I bought this.” I gestured to the cake.

“Exactly,” you replied with a grin. “It’s your money! Therefore, it’s your cake.” 

“I bought this for you. You _asked_ me to buy it.” 

You paused, then determined, “I never said I wanted cheesecake for the sake of eating it. I wanted the satisfaction of you buying it for me.” 

I laughed and jokingly scolded you, for I didn’t know what it meant. We kept talking and eventually I ordered pancakes for myself and pushed the plate towards you. It remained in front of you, and you started reading a book as I ate. You put it down and we discussed the contents of the book and the contents of life itself. When my plate was empty and I paid the bill, we remained for a little while and did some homework. As for the cheesecake, your face had sunk. I couldn’t address the dread but I felt it there. 

As we got ready to leave, I motioned to it. 

You said, “I can’t.” 

I didn’t know what it meant. But I felt it there and gave you a look that said, _you know what? It’s okay_ and we left the cake untouched on the table, leaving the building arms in arms. 

v.vi

I never let you berate yourself for anything, especially your tangents. It was a tough gig. 

On a call a year into my knowledge that I was falling you’d said, “I should let you talk more.” 

I said, “I think you already know half the things I don’t say.” 

You paused, thought for a while, and said, “That’s true.” 

By this I meant that you could talk as long as you please, and I simply contribute to the conversation in my own special ways. When you confirmed, I hoped this meant you already knew that every _yes, I suppose_ was code for _I want to take your feelings from you, but for now, I feel you,_ and every _yes, I know_ was code for _please keep living for me_. 

v.vii

That diner became a favorite place of ours, and that first time was long before it happened. It was before the before of it happening. During this before was when you started getting those dreams, when I rode the bus every other night. But I had always waited for your calls. It didn’t always need to be about a nightmare. 

It’s now about three months since it happened. This is all starting to resurface again. I can barely formulate those meanings behind the affirmations, and I long for the days when we went to university together. Even if they were some of the most exhausting of my life, they were the calm before your storm. Those two semesters were heavenly, both eye-opening and more private than I thought our relationship would ever get. Everyone there already had history with you, so soon, we were barely seen apart and most didn’t look twice. 

You dropped the third semester a weekend after hushed correspondence with your family. You left the campus and I followed. I was confused and upset because you didn’t tell me why, and I was getting worried, but by the time I got to your place I had figured it out for myself. 

We lied there, on the grass on top of the hill bordering the woods. About a half-mile to our right was a churchyard. I didn’t turn to look at your face, but I knew it was stricken, I knew your insides were twisted, I knew. I slid my hand into yours and tried to make myself as warm as possible. 

You stared blankly at the dark sky above us. After a while, you murmured, “Promise me something?” 

I said, “Of course.” 

“You won’t tell anybody this happened,” you said. 

I nodded and said, “I promise.” 

You had me promise two or three times more. You sat up and we locked eyes, and I promised with earnest again. 

“Anyone asks, just say you don’t know,” you kept saying. “As for you, I think you should go back to campus and leave me here.” 

“No,” I protested, but after you reacted to this, I said I’d go back, but I would visit often and recommended you call me if you ever needed. 

You proceeded to sit up and bury your face in my chest, and I felt you mumbling about burying deeper. I wrapped you in bitter warmth as I whispered, “I hope my jacket’s deep enough for now.” 

v.viii

I’ve continued going to university, but campus just doesn’t feel the same. I’m irritable and reclusive and I simply nod and smile. Your ex keeps asking where you went. 

v.ix

Similarly to how I did not let you berate yourself, you did not let me deny what you felt was true. And you insisted that I was kind, understanding, and therefore undeserving of the rest of the world and its troubles. Even now this is something I come back to, something I endlessly question and overanalyze. 

“You can believe in nothing else, for all I care,” you have said, sensing the overwhelming hesitance inside me, my fear that I was nothing but amiss. “So long as you believe you are a good person. Because you damn well are.” 

v.x

Laertes was right. You expected too much of people. 

v.xi

But the strangest thing of all about grieving is that it does not happen when it’s supposed to. When it happened, everything crashed and burned. Then it dried up almost overnight. I spat at everyone around me, _get it over with, move_ , and this is just what happened. It was gotten over with. I saluted, nodded, said “thanks,” introduced myself when people did not know me. I sat at my desk and wrote one line over and over, then I waved the paper over a candle. Through all of this—in fact, for almost three months afterward—I felt next to nothing. Or at least, nothing compared to what I was supposed to be feeling. I was terrified that you had gone or that I was broken, or that I suddenly didn’t love you anymore. I failed you for those three months, but that didn’t concern me then. 

Then, just last night, it struck. 

I hadn’t been thinking about you. (So to speak, I wasn’t particularly choosing to think about you.) I saw nothing that reminded me of you. But I went to bed and sat right back up again. I couldn’t sleep and I hadn’t the mind to read, so I watched mindless television and that only made me angrier.

When the anger made me begin to curse you out, I felt terrible. I apologized a thousand times for the mistruths I said, thinking about all the truths you used to point out I denied. I dragged myself to my desk and peered out the window, waiting for the sun to rise. I perked up, receiving a strong dosage of longing. I began to get the feeling that you would appear, if I waited patiently. 

By then, I had started the process of attempting to resurface memories, create an arc, make sense of all of this. But your demise is never in order. You’re finally trying their cheesecake for the first time; then you’re reading and ignoring it; then I’m watching you on the train, entranced; then we’re staying up all night in the campus library; then you’re moving to Harlem with your mother; then you appear, once again; then everyone’s asking where you went; then I’m on the bus; then we’re on the hill; then you and your ex are sneering at one another; then it’s a blur. I realize usually by that point that I can’t remember the specific events, only the things you had said. 

If I wanted to, I could have gotten up, bought a ticket and rode all the way back to your old place. I imagined myself doing so. I’d be standing, arms outstretched, in the front pathway, the surrounding forest facing me. The deep wood surrounding the graveyard where we had that long conversation, the gardens where we had that long conversation, the secret corridors where I finally shut you up and bit your tongue. Soon you’ll appear there, if I’m patient. But there was only wind that I could see but couldn’t feel. There were only the storm clouds the rising sun hid behind. There was only emptiness in the street. I stood up from my desk, only for it all to rise up like a thick syrup and have me crumble to the floor. 

Kneeling there, I heard the roosters sing as I whimpered and wept. You were not there. 

v.xii

I’m sorry, sweetness. I’m trying. But this is no story. This is no story at all. 


End file.
